Fearless
by Lilac Summers
Summary: The lifestream has risen, meteor is destroyed, and between stickybuns and gardening, Tifa faces a few revelations. Gardening is therapeutic, after all.


Fearless

By: Lilac Summers

Some would have called her fearless.

Tifa walked down the dusty alley, her stride sure and unhurried, the white paper bag she carried tracing a lazy arc as she swung it back and forth. The streets she walked were some of Midgar's worst, even before the fall of Shinra. Now the sectors were pockets of struggling shops and humble homes, separated by stretches of abandoned buildings populated only by thugs and muggers. Warehouses loomed on either side of her and doorways yawned dark and empty, the majority of the doors having been stolen long-ago for the wood. But Tifa did not hesitate. She moved through the derelict pathways with ease, unconcerned with the subtle rustles that indicated movement within.

She was not afraid of the shifting of shadows, or the echo of footsteps, because when the group of three "tough guys" intercepted her she backhanded one, kicked the other in the groin, and slammed the third against the wall.

All in 7 seconds.

No, Tifa was not afraid of anything that could be taken down with a fist or a kick. Walking through the destroyed sector gave her no more pause than walking through a sunny meadow.

But when she reached the broken church where her group had stopped to pay their respects, she was terrified. Absolutely petrified. Cloud looked up from where he knelt tending a patch of blooms, and all the saliva in her mouth dried up. She lingered in the entryway as all her imagined inadequacies settled into familiar grooves on her bare shoulders. The confidence she had felt as she walked through the town deserted her, leaving her feeling like a child who had done something wrong.

"Tifa, did you bring 'em?"

Tifa jumped slightly at the question, turning around to face Yuffie. Yuffie hopped from foot to foot with the energy of a crazed rabbit. Tifa wordlessly extended the bag she'd been carrying, and with a cry of triumph the ninja greedily took it.

"Sticky buns!! I can't believe you found them!" she chortled, then danced a weird little jig that involved much wriggling and pumping her fists in the air. It coaxed a smiled from Tifa, the smile lingering as she declined a bun and watched Yuffie scamper off to share the bounty with the rest of the crew.

"Did you have any problems?"

And Tifa jumped again, uncharacteristically skittish in the warm atmosphere of the church. Cloud stood no more than two feet away, blue eyes clear and direct.

"Nah. Got a bit lost finding the shop, but none other than that."

"Good. I'm glad that . . . good."

Silence fell. Uncomfortable. Stifling. Tifa urged herself to think of something to say, anything. But nothing came, so she stared helplessly at Cloud until he shifted restlessly, shot her an embarrassed smile, and turned back to the flowers.

Tifa was many things. Everyone had their different definition for her: a tomboy, a bartender, a waitress, a fighter. She'd been called a hero, based on reputation. She'd been called a bimbo, based on attire.

Mostly, Tifa didn't care how people defined her or what they called her. She went along with her day, bartending or fighting or saving the world, as she pleased.

She had never, however, believed herself a coward. Not until meteor had fallen, the lifestream had battled it back, and then left her here to pick up the pieces of a life she believed she wouldn't get to continue. Her courage deserted her, and all those things she wanted to say, wanted to do, were trampled down by pure, devastating fear.

After the lifestream had risen, Cid had somehow managed to land the battered aircraft on relatively even ground. The crew had stumbled and weaved out, drunk on exhilaration and exhaustion.

Awash in the blue-green afterglow, they had tended to their wounds. Yuffie bitched to an ever-patient Nanaki about a gash along her leg, but the words held more relief than heat. Tifa had crashed against a console and broken a rib. She'd written it off as more of a hassle than a real injury until Cloud had overriden her embarrassed protests and forced her still with one look through determined Mako-eyes. He then kneeled before her and gently set himself to the task of healing the break As she had drifted in a potion-induced haze, gazing down at Cloud in a kind of dreamy tranquility, he looked up from his work of bandaging her ribs, caught her eyes and said very softly, "We should visit the church and give thanks."

And so here she was, standing in the quiet, filtered light of the church, and feeling like an interloper. Cloud tended to the flowers with as much care as he'd used for her broken ribs. He handled the blooms as if they were fragile things, not the hardy posies that had somehow managed to survive a polluted Midgar for years. She turned to join the others who congregated over the sticky buns at the far end of the building. Only after a step or two did she realize she didn't want to stand around and talk and smile. So with a jittery half-turn she began to make her way to Cloud until she made it to the edge of garden where rotted floorboards gave way to soil. She came to an abrupt stop, halted by an invisible barrier constructed of all her hidden fears and longings.

Cloud glanced her way, saw her hesitating indecisively, and waved her over to join him. And then what choice did she have? It felt as though her first step was taken through layers of cement. She picked her way over the flowers with ridiculous fastidiousness, not daring to step on a single leaf. When she finally, painstakingly reached Cloud, she found him smiling at her.

"What?"

Cloud shook his head, quick laughter flashing through his eyes. "Nothing. Would you like to help?"

No, Tifa thought. She'd like to get out, to run away from this church that reminded her of what they'd gained, what they'd lost, and what she would never have.

"Sure." It was another battle to get to her knees beside him without crushing any of the flowers, and she stifled a relieved breath when her weight finally made it to her knees.

Her attention shifted to Cloud's hands as he patted the dirt around a seedling. The rich, dark soil had found its way underneath his fingernails. He'd taken off his gloves, and the calluses on his palms were starkly evident. And yet, he handled the plants with the surety of one who'd gardened his whole life.

Tifa slipped off her own fighting glove and then could only stare at the profusion of plants around her. Give her a good recipe to follow any day, but she had absolutely no idea what to do with plants.

"So...do I water them or something?"

"That'd help." Cloud passed her an old, broken urn that was seeing use as a watering pot, and Tifa began to sprinkle the water over the ground. She let herself get lost in the way the soil greedily absorbed the water, and how the texture changed into moist richness.

"Not too much, now."

Tifa dutifully righted the urn, set it aside, and then felt utterly useless as she gazed around her in bewilderment. Was she supposed to weed them? Isn't that what people did? But the flowers grew in tidy clumps, no straggling weeds marring their profusion.

"I. . . . did you finish weeding?"

"Didn't have to, no weeds." Cloud gave a bit of a half-laugh and used his forearm to wipe his brow. He left a streak of rich earth above his left eyebrow. "Isn't that weird?"

Tifa muffled a harsh exhale. Wasn't that a kicker? It wasn't enough that Aeris had been perfect, but apparently that perfection extended into everything else linked to her, like this garden. Tifa tried her best to trample down the thought, frustrated at how easily she let herself be taken by envy.

"Well, there doesn't seem much for me to help you with," she observed. And her relationship with Cloud seemed forever mired in her providing "help." Never doing quite enough, just "helping." Helping him join Avalanche, helping him fight Jenova, helping to piece his fractured mind together, helping him find his reason to fight. Always helping, helping, helping.

How she bitterly resented being thought of as his good friend, his helper. How she resented even more that she clung to that definition because it was the only one she had.

She moved her weight back, then forward, unable to find a reason to stay yet unwilling to go, until Cloud's unnatural stillness drew her notice.

Cloud's hands had paused in the soil, his gaze fixed on the flower he tended. It seemed to peer back at him, it's pink petals lifted upward.

"You don't have to help." Cloud's quiet murmur made Tifa's heart drop until it settled somewhere in the vicinity of her feet. He'd stolen the ground from underneath her and left her to flounder, because if she didn't have even that pathetic connection, what would she have left?

"Well then..." Tifa braced her hands on the soft soil, willing herself to move, to leave, to hide away.

"You could . . . you could keep me company?" His request ended on a question, and whipped Tifa's attention back to Cloud's averted face. His eyes were lowered, and she could read nothing in them. Her gaze traveled instead over his cheekbones, the firm line of his jaw, the play of muscles under the blue sleeves of his sweater, to finally settle on those dirt-smudged hands. He clenched the moist soil, knuckles white.

A picture, a memory, flashed through Tifa's mind. She wore blue, and had a bevy of boys orbiting around her. She looked up to find Cloud, a shy adolescent, standing along the edges of the group, hands clenched tight around the stem of a wildflower. Later that night, she'd found that flower on her doorstep, with a note asking her to meet at the well.

So now her gaze was frozen on the sight of two strong hands, covered in dirt and tension. It finally occurred to Tifa that perhaps she wasn't the only one who was afraid.

It was a novel concept, and it made her bold. Her own hand reached out, tentative, hesitant, until her cool fingertips rested on Cloud's hand. There she paused, admired the contrast of her slender white fingers on the tanned flesh of his larger hand. He relaxed his grip on the soil, and it filtered through his fingers to join the ground. He turned his hand, curled his fingers with hers.

There they sat, in Aeris' flower garden, silently holding hands.

And Tifa grew a little less afraid, a little less uncertain because maybe . . . Maybe all along they had been helping each other.

The End

Ever the Tifa fan, I am. How couldn't you love her, poor thing with all those cute insecurities and a major thing for a befuddled Cloud? I know somewhere in there is also an angry, kick-ass, "for the love of all that's holy, get a friggin' clue, Cloud" Tifa, and maybe I'll find myself writing a vignette for that side of her as well, one day.


End file.
